


Slayer's Vengeance

by Jago_Dakari



Series: Slayer's Vengeance Universe [1]
Category: Alien Series, Alien vs Predator (2004), Predator Series
Genre: F/M, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Romance, Rocking action scenes, Sci Fi meets Mythology, expanded universe material that no one ever fucking uses!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-03-29 01:39:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13916634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jago_Dakari/pseuds/Jago_Dakari
Summary: It's the end of the 23rd century and mankind has reached the stars, establishing many out lying colonies on other worlds similar to Earth under the leadership of the United Earth Federation. During that time, they had come in contact with the Yautja race where before they only met some individuals over the centuries and both races shared comparatively good, though separate, relations. However, there are some xeno extremists who think otherwise.This story revolves around the exploits of Ja'anya (Jaina), a Yautja huntress of the Lai'kairis clanship, and of Alaric, a marine turned vengeful slayer seeking to avenge the brutal murders of his family. Both come together during their exploits and Alaric comes to learn that there are some things that are worth living for. However, a long forgotten history will surface that will threaten to tear them apart.





	1. The Slayer

**Author's Note:**

> Hey denizens of the Archives.
> 
> This is my first epic i have ever written, having begun way back 2011 on Fanfiction.net, and i am proud to spread the fruits of my works to a new audience. Honestly, this began as a simple way of passing time and to make an adventure while i was at it. But after I posted it online, and admitting a bumpy start due to being a complete newbie at this sort of thing, i garnered a loyal fanbase that grew bigger with each chapter as the body count, word count, and the scenes of absoulute rocking action increased. And with that i began earnest development of the Slayer's Vengeance Universe.
> 
> This setting, based on a franchise close to my heart, expands on the original Aliens, Predator and AVP films into one cohesive universe, bolstered by the wealth of knowledge from the comics and games. With this, the story and setting gradually grew into something in the likes of Mass Effect and Star Wars but with the hard sci fi grittiness and action you come to expect from the AVP series and the deep immersive lore of the hallowed Dark Souls series.
> 
> But... under no circumstances, barring a few items, mention Aliens: Colonial Marines or Alien Covenant (Read the Novelisation, it fixes a lot of issues from the movie Including the World Breaking one). Honestly, WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!
> 
> But throwing that aside, if you are interested in my work of bringing more badassery on paper, i have also set up a patreon where, for as little as a dollar, i have many exclusive stories and titbits that further expand on the universe plus a few original works in the making. And, I also have plans to rewrite Slayer's Vengeance in a more updated form. A lot of development can happen in nearly tens years of writing. But here, and on FF.net, you can see the soon to be First Edition of Slayer's Vengeance.
> 
> Shameless self advertising aside, here is the link to the page and i hope to hear what you say about it in the comments: https://www.patreon.com/JagoDakari
> 
> But enough of this, i have distracted you for too long. sit back, relax and enjoy the journey.
> 
>  
> 
> Note: Those of you who never played, or even heard of warhammer fantasy battles won't know what a "Slayer" is. A "Slayer" is a dwarf (original race that has Slayers) that has been dishonoured in some irredeemable way and has forsaken everything to find death in combat and in doing so regain their honour. Dwarfs are psychologically incapable of suicide, or fighting deliberately to lose, so they always enter the fight to win. I tweaked the concept a bit so it'll fit a human and the resulting expansion as more and more ideas kept sprouting. The original Slayer concept, and thus the inspiration, is the IP of Games Workshop. (well, until they blew that universe up and brought out Age of Sigmar.)

Chapter one, The Slayer.

~

Date: January 31st, 2250, 54 AEI (After Earth Infestation)

Planet: Floria VII, United Earth Federation colony, Frontier Worlds, Canis Sector.

Navigation point: Wolf's Head Nebula

Planetary Capital: Fort Van Pelt

Population: 1400 colonists, 500 defence personnel. 10000-30000 big game hunters per year

Status: Safari World for big game hunters. Neutralising a Xenomorph Extremist insurgency.

~

The forest was strangely quiet during this hunt; something had made the local fauna speechless. The jungle world of Floria VII was known through out the sector as being a place of adventure and battle since it was colonised in 2154. Even after that time, the planet wasn't fully colonised because of the native plant life's uncanny ability to grow at an alarming rate. Another reason was that it was where hunters from all over colonised space gathered to hunt its dangerous and cunning beasts. And it was here that one hunter, or in this case one huntress, found her life turned upside down by a grim relic of the ancient past.

Ja'anya, a young newly Blooded huntress, crouched in a massive moss covered tree as she counted her recent kills. Her mask was sitting in her lap while she counted the skulls she had claimed. Her weapon of choice had been a long glaive polearm that was resting on the tree trunk. This weapon had earned her a respectable status by allowing her to cleave the heads off three Kainde amedha in one slash, and it had been her preferred weapon ever since. That was not saying she didn't use her other weapons, only that she preferred her glaive over the various other weapons that she had available.

She had been raised to be a huntress like her mother but she was also into medical arts very much like her late father had been. She remembered her father, an adaptable hunter, and a brilliant doctor who had often risked his life getting much needed medicine components from hostile worlds. If there was anything anyone on her clanship needed, he would get it. One such trip ensured his death when he was fatally ambushed by xenomorphs, yet he still fought on, and through sheer will alone, held off his final breath until his mission was complete. She was only a pup when it happened and studying the healing arts was a way of paying homage to him.

The Yautja of her clanship considered her to be an attractive female. Possibly one of the best of her generation with fine pearl white tusks, the talons on her hands and feet were jet black, her eyes were a shade of bright violet like her mothers, fine dark tanned skin which had fine dark stripes on her back like a tiger and she had her father's selfless personality. In many ways, she was regarded as a perfect female, as if she was a living incarnation of a goddess but there was one thing that set her apart from other Yautja females. She was short by Yautja standards, a rare thing for her race and more so for the females, just closing in at six feet. This would be considered the Yautja's version of dwarfism. This didn't seem to bother her at all because it only made her more agile then most of the other hunters on her clanship where she was able to use her smaller frame to take advantage of minute gaps in an opponents defence.

She had claimed four skulls from the xeno extremists on this world. She despised these people who sought to spread the deadly xenos to every world. The humans didn't seem to mind hunters killing them because the extremists were a common enemy ever since the xenomorphs were first encountered. Throughout history there had been fanatical groups, whether its ideologies were about religion, race, colour, creed, or sex, but when it came right down to it, they were always pretty much the same thing; murderers. It was those extremists who had nearly cost humanity their home world to the xenomorphs. It was the extremists that doomed many worlds in flavor of their 'divine creatures'. They were carriers of a relentless plague.

She readied her glaive, checked her armour, donned her mask, and proceeded through the canopy of the forest, leaping from tree to tree, looking for her next kill. This jungle world held many surprises for a hunter, the humans had colonised many worlds by the end of the twenty-third century and it was opportunistic for the Yautja that humans had colonised this one with game hunting in mind. The best of both worlds in a sense. She had hunted here a few times before and each visit held another surprise for her, be it new prey or a lovely view from the trees.

There was a reason for her visit this time, some curiosity needed to be sated. There was a very strange occurrence that had been happening for the past Earth year. There had been numerous reports, from both humans and Yautja, of a humanoid figure wandering the forests, killing off anything that got in the way of the blood-crazed and completely psychopathic rage. Strangely enough, it never attacked humans, but if it happened to encounter a Yautja, it would begin a relentless and merciless attack. What was even stranger, was that the mysterious figure would then leave, just as suddenly as it had appeared. One identifying fact for this phenomenon was that it seemed to mistake the hunter for something else, or it might be possible that those hunters weren't the right ones. Ja'anya wanted to see the origin of the ethereal stories with her own eyes.  
Leaping from tree to tree, she wondered idly if she would ever find a mate, but her size made it hard to find one that would accept her. All the males seemed to prefer bigger females than her, and that often made her frustrated because she was just as strong as any of her race. However, she had no intention of finding a mate yet. She just wanted to hunt for a time. That was when she heard the sound of combat accompanied by the typical yells, bestial roars, and the falling of bodies.  
'What is that?' She wondered as she stopped to listen.

She focused on trying to recognise the sounds. It sounded suspiciously like a pack of wild animals were trying to pick off a single target. It was probably just nature taking its course, as was the way of all things. Ja'anya was about to move on to look for her next trophy when she heard a long, powerful roar. And it sounded like it had originated from a fellow hunter, and not from what ever was attacking it. Immediately, in an act that her father was known for, she moved rapidly in the direction of the roar. Nimbly jumping from branch to branch as she headed to check on a fellow hunter. She landed on a large branch, outside of a rocky clearing and surveyed the scene in front of her. She couldn't believe what she was seeing.

In the clearing at the top of a hill, being attacked by several, ten foot tall giant lizards dubbed pseudo-raptors was a strange looking human. He was bare-chested, had a broad yet slim build and he wore armored gloves on his hands. He also was wearing dark green camouflage pants, armored boots, and greaves, reminiscent of the human colonial marines. He was fighting the pseudo-raptors with such a ferocity that she was suddenly very glad that she wasn't anywhere among them. But instead of wielding marine weaponry such as their trademark pulse rifle, which is what would be expected, the human male wielded two ornate broad headed axes in each hand, and had a double handed battle axe in a marine combat harness strapped on his battle scared yet muscular back. What was perhaps the oddest and striking feature about this human was that he had long, fiery orange-red hair that would've gone past his waist if it wasn't stuck out in alarming angles making him resemble some sort of demented spiked animal. Then, there were the faint blue markings on his body and face that looked like war paint that had faded over time.

There were eight dead pseudo-raptors strewn about the place that had been hacked, slashed, and cleaved apart. One had even been impaled onto a jagged spire of rock. Ja'anya scanned the area for anyone else but she couldn't see any signs of another individual.

The human dodged a swipe from a pseudo-raptor's razor sharp claws before lunging back and with one swipe from both axes took half its head off in a massive spray of blood and cranial matter, much of which, landed in the human's face. The reptile's still twitching body went cascading down the side of the hill to smash against the rocks below.  
Ja'anya looked on impressed with what she was witnessing. She had heard stories from experienced hunters of the colonial marines, but she had never heard of one who would take on foes with nothing more than simple melee weapons. Though the way this human wielded them in each hand suggested that he had been trained extensively.  
The human charged at one pseudo-raptor, roaring loudly. The raptor tried to grab him in its maw but the human slid right under its grasp, slashing his axes into its belly. Its guts rolled out in a fleshy tsunami as it keeled over and died while the human slid out from beneath. The human casually twirled his axes before grinning as he deliberately chose his next target.

'This ooman has skill.' Ja'anya thought in silent admiration.

The human jumped on the back of one pseudo-raptor, driving the axes deep into its back. The beast shook him off and he fell onto the ground hard dropping both of the hand axes in the process. He rolled back up instantly and drew the axe on his back. The pseudo-raptor behind him bit into his left shoulder hard, making him lose control of his arm and the limb fell limp and useless. He casually swung the axe dead centre into its skull, crushing the bone and penetrating the brain. It let go of his shoulder and fell limply to the ground. Blood poured out of the wounded shoulder but the human showed no sign of pain. In fact, it only seemed to make him angrier.

The human charged at the last pseudo-raptor and drove the axe into its side. It bucked, roaring and lashed out at the human with its tail hitting him hard and fast in the chest. Bones broke as his rib cage cracked and he was flung several meters in the air before falling into the hard rocks and landing in a heap, Ja'anya looked on shocked as the human struggled to get to his feet. He stood up shaking and coughing, with blood spurting out of his mouth and several puncture wounds on his body with sharp stones lodged in them. One jagged piece of rock was sticking out of his chest and he merely ripped it out, blood gushing from the wound, and threw it back into the rocks. The raptor charged at him with the axe still lodged in its body.

'What is this ooman doing?' She wondered in disbelief. 'Why isn't he getting out of its way?'

It was as if this human had a death wish. The human was moving slowly towards the raging pseudo-raptor. The pseudo-raptor roared and charged to bite him in its jaws. The human, with flawless precision, rolled to the right, leaving bloody smears on the grass and rocks and pulled his large axe out of the animal, trailing blood in the air. He jumped and brought the axe down on its spine. Its legs gave out and it crashed headfirst to the ground. The human then limped up to the paralysed predator and brought the axe down hard on its head, ending its suffering.

He just stood there for a moment, panting heavily and bleeding out before throwing his head back, his fiery hair whip lashing his back and letting out a long frustrated roar. With that the human fell backwards hard onto the ground, his body bouncing on impact as what ever strength that had keeping him up had finally given out.

"How in the black warrior's skill?" She whispered to herself, shocked at what she had seen. "It would take twenty, no fifty, oomans to take on that many in close combat!"

She jumped down, invisible in her cloaking field and ran over to the fallen human, her glaive poised just in case while she stood over the human. From the looks of him, he was about the same height as she was. His breathing was shallow, which told her that his lungs were punctured. Deep crimson blood was seeping from his wounds and pooling around him. Then the human looked up at her and he gave a sort of strange smile. Ja'anya then saw a striking feature. This human's irises were a deep red, the same colour as the slowly spreading blood that pooled around him.

"Yautja…finally." He said softly but with a distinct tone of hostility in his voice.

As the human struggled to get his axe, Ja'anya stepped on his hand with her foot. He then struggled with what little life was in his body, but Ja'anya held her foot firmly down. He looked at her with deep red eyes, like he was daring her to strike as he continued to struggle.

"Do it, finish what you started." He said in a snarl. "You and your lackeys are fucking murderous cowards anyway."  
She stared at him in puzzlement. 'Did he really want to die?'

Then, there was that insult which had definitely struck a nerve.

She raised a fist and with one punch in the centre of his forehead, she knocked him out cold. She got off his hand and crouched by him while she examined his wounds. She was surprised that he was able to move with those injuries. Either this human was a madman or just stubborn enough not to let such wounds stop him and she quickly made up her mind.

She decided take him back to her ship and tend to his wounds. Then she'd get the answers she wanted one way or another.

She pulled out her medical kit and she very carefully tried to stem his bleeding. She knew that she would be able to fully help him back at her ship, but she had to make sure he lived long enough to get there first. Pulling out a plasma cauterizing pad, she deftly and quickly sealed those wounds she could reach. His punctured lung would have to hold on in the meantime. Picking him up and slinging him over her shoulders, not something that was hard to do with humans. She walked over and retrieved his axes from the pseudo-raptor's carcass. They were surprisingly light, almost too light for them to be of human make. She noticed that the back of each hand axe's head was an arrow headed spike, mostly likely armor piercing for tougher kills. Holding one to her hand, she lightly pressed her palm on it to check the sharpness of the edge but immediately withdrew her hand in pain. She looked at her hand and saw a deep cut in her palm and her blood was seeping out and running down her wrist pooling around her wrist computer.

'This isn't normal!' She thought. 'How does an ooman know how to make monomolecular blades?'

Now she was more intrigued by this human. She began running through the dense woods back to her ship. She nimbly jumped over logs and ditches, all the while with the unconscious human on her shoulder. Her ship was nearby, about a twenty minute run from her current position, cloaked to keep it from being seen. It was a small scouting ship for travelling hunters, something that suited her perfectly. She activated the entry ramp, which came down quietly and she immediately entered carrying her unconscious guest before retracting the ramp up.

She carried the unconscious human through the hallway to her bedroom and dumped him on the bed where he bounced up on to his side. She laid him on his back before taking off her weapons. She went over to an ornate cabinet made of black wood and pulled out a surgical kit. Firstly, she bandaged her cut hand before setting to work. She walked back to her patient, pulled an injector pistol from her kit and loaded it with a vial of clear fluid. She jabbed it into his neck and injected it before withdrawing. The human didn't react to it as she hoped. Using her mask's multiple vision modes she began the process of healing his fractured body. The fluid she injected helped to pinpoint areas of internal bleeding which showed up bright among the dark view of her mask's interface. She saw that, strangely, his internal organs were not as damaged as she had feared. The most serious internal injury was his right lung that took the impalement. While switching back to normal vision, she suddenly noticed something glitter on his chest, obstructed by the combat harness. She leaned over to see what it was, her long dreadlocks draping over the man's chest.  
She picked up a pair of dog tags; the name on it said 'L.T. Alaric...'

The rest was unreadable with a lot of scrapes and dents from however many battles this man had been in. This confirmed her suspicion that he was indeed a marine. She flipped them over to see the other side and she saw an emblem of a winged sword.

She also saw what looked like a locket. It was rectangular in shape, and embossed on the front was what appeared to be a rune of some sort, the same type as the ones on the axes. She tapped on it with her talons, it flipped open, the front of it flipped downwards and revealed a small picture, and she quickly zoomed in on it. It showed this man but he looked a lot different. He was dressed in a camo Marine Corps uniform and with black hair instead of orange that had been tied into a long ponytail resting on his right shoulder. He had a brown haired woman in the same kind of uniform with a child sitting on her lap. The man had a happy smile on his face and was resting that double handed axe on his chest.

His family?

She looked at the man, noting the changes between him and the picture before laying the tags back on him. She would know the answer to that soon enough as she diligently worked on him.


	2. chapter 2

Chapter 2- old wounds and nightmares.

A woman's pained screams filled the room. A child's terrified cry pierced the uproar. Merciless and inhuman laughter blotted them out. A bloody hand reached out to the shadows before a shower of broken glass blocked the view of those shadows. Then the whole world erupted into a firestorm, the screams were even louder then before. Then from the flames strode a dark figure wielding three axes.

The man identified as Alaric opened his eyes suddenly, sweating bullets and groggily taking in the scene. He was in a strange room and he could feel that he was on a rather large bed, with what looked like a fur blanket on the top of the fine linen sheets that he was lying on. Bandages were wrapped around his torso and shoulders and he could make out stitches on his body where gashes used to be.

'What am I doing here?' He thought. 'I should be dead and my skull mounted on a wall?'

He tried to lift himself up, but the pain made it extremely laboring. Breathing deeply he sat up quickly. The pain was excruciating but he made it into a sitting position. His whole body was tender and he saw his axes, cleaned and shining, propped up neatly on a stool by the bed he was on.

"So that hunter didn't kill me…" He said to himself.

He raised his right hand to scratch his head, his fingers passing through the spikes in his hair. He felt stitches in his head and it irritated him. He decided against scratching them.

'Hmm…'He thought. 'Maybe it'll want to fight me or torture me once I've recovered.'

He had heard of hunters healing humans who had shown exceptional fighting skills in order to have an honourable fight rather then attacking them while they're injured. Their often strange code of honour forbid them from doing that. Unless they were Bad-Bloods obviously.

'Just maybe…' He thought with hope. 'This will be the right one. Number forty-one.'

His answer soon came when the door slid open and in came Ja'anya dressed in a flowing gown, her dreadlocks came down to just above her waist and she had what looked like meat and fruit on a tray she was carrying. Her eyes went wide as she noticed that Alaric was awake and moderately well.

Alaric's mind went into a bend as saw his misjudgement of the Yautja who had nursed him back to life.

'It's not the one!' He thought with frustration. 'It's not any of them!'

"Ah, so you finally woke up." She said in the ooman language in which she was surprisingly fluent. "I was beginning to think you wouldn't ever wake."

"So it seems." Alaric said with obvious distrust in his voice.

She sat down at the edge of the bed as she laid the tray down. Alaric looked at her with puzzlement in his maroon eyes. Obviously, he was confused at the sight of a small Yautja huntress. The hunters that he fought against were all over seven feet tall at the least.

"Aren't you a bit short for a hunter?" He asked dubiously.

"That's what every one says when they see me." Ja'anya answered. "My lack of height is what they always see first. It's... what's the ooman word?"

"Frustrating."

"Yes, that's the word."

She handed him one of the fruit that was on the tray. Alaric accepted it somewhat cautiously. He examined it very carefully, looking for any sign of poison or any nasty trick.

"Why am I still alive?" He said to himself.

"Well, because I took your battered body and nursed you back to life for the last seven days. For one thing I'm actually surprised you lived with the amount of blood you lost"

"I'm not. Although, quite frankly I was sure I met my end when you arrived."

He took a bite out of the fruit not even bothering to peel it and he chewed it, waxy skin, seeds, and all.

"Why the attitude Ooman?" Ja'anya asked; she was clearly offended by Alaric's behavior.

"I'm a Slayer. What else would you expect?" He asked rhetorically before swallowing.

Ja'anya raised an eyebrow.

'Slayer? Is that what he calls himself?'

"A what?" She asked confused.

Alaric looked at her, in a manner that said his words should have been clear enough.

"You don't know what a Slayer is, do you?" Alaric said, sighing. "To put it short, a Slayer is a warrior brooding about the misery of existence and seeks death at the hands of any dangerous beast or warriors he finds, or to put it even shorter a suicidal loner."

Ja'anya looked at him. A human who loathed living and sought death by hunting down dangerous animals; she never heard of such a thing. She flexed her mandibles open as she ate some meat of the tray.

Alaric lifted his left arm and flexed the muscles. He was relived that the bite didn't cause too much damage.

"I never heard of any oomans that call themselves that." Ja'anya said.

"Well you wouldn't." Alaric said. "I'm the only one you'll ever find."

He started picking out bits of skin and crushed seeds from his teeth. Ja'anya watched him. So far, her questioning wasn't getting anywhere, so she decided to try a different approach. She decided to introduce herself, and get to know him a bit.

"My name Ja'anya of the Lai'kairis clanship." She said.

Alaric merely nodded. Like he was not paying any attention.

"So, your name is Alaric?" Ja'anya asked, trying to make conversation.

Alaric shot her a hard look.

"Sneaked a look at my tags while I was out, did you?" Alaric bit out.

He was about to take another bite from his fruit when she said something that immediately got to him inside.

"Why do you seek death when you have a family?" She asked.

Alaric suddenly squeezed the fruit so hard and fast that it squirted juice and pulp on his face and on Ja'anya, making her pull back in surprise. His eyes were staring of into space and his lips were quivering slightly. Ja'anya looked at him while wiping the mush off her face. He looked at her with anger in his eyes and a snarl in his mouth.

Ja'anya knew immediately that she had struck a nerve, and she decided that it was a good thing she had a knife behind her back just in case.

"I had a family once." He said, in a surprisingly calm tone. "They were taken from me."

He tossed the pulped fruit on the tray, wiped his face, and leaned over where he picked up one of the axes and he held it on his lap in a way a child often does with a much loved pet.  
"These are all that I have left, heirloom axes and my memories. Your race saw to that, with a lot of relish and satisfaction on their part."

Ja'anya came closer so her head was a foot away from his.

"What happened to them?" She asked. "It's evident that you mean it when you say it was my people who did it."

"Not evident. It's the truth."

He looked up at her. He sighed as he tried to think of the best way to tell her.

"To know about me, you have to know about the bloodline of Grimnir, the first slayer." Alaric started, choosing his words carefully so that Ja'anya could understand. "My ancestors were all warriors from Europe, descended from the ancient Spartans of Greece, according to our family legend anyway. Grimnir was the warrior chief of my clan who had suffered the loss of his wife and all but one of his four children who were killed and mutilated by Mongol invaders. The only survivor was his youngest son who had been nailed onto his throne as an act of vilification of the highest scale. Enraged, he swore an oath that came to be called the Slayer Oath, how he would personally hunt down and kill the enemy leader who ordered the attack and those responsible or die trying."

'Sounds like a colourful history,' Ja'anya thought. 'A bit barbaric and tragic but interesting.'

"However, since he was chief he was honor-bound to lead his clan and so he couldn't seek to kill the Mongol leader and so the oath was passed down his bloodline, the eldest son in the family taking up the oath when his father died. It wasn't until four years ago, when I was eighteen, that the oath had finally been fulfilled and that Genghis Kahn's last living descendant was killed by my hand."

He stopped for a moment and held out his right arm, she looked at it and saw six runes of the same kind on his locket, coloured jet black and tattooed on his forearm. One of them, the one on his wrist was just a patch of faint scar tissue were it had been removed by a sharp, bladed instrument. The other five were fresh; no more then a year old.

"It was pretty fortunate that he was a wanted extremist priest." Alaric said, with a hint of amusement.

"You fulfilled that oath, so why have you got five more?" Ja'anya asked dragging her finger lightly over them.

She had seen human runes in various historical texts from hunters in the past. But these runes were unlike anything that she had seen. They were all arrow shaped, with a secondary chevron near the base. The squat size of each of them would suggest that they were etched within a square no bigger than a square inch.

"One year ago, that was when I finally had a family after my ancestor's oath had been completed that it was taken from me, exactly the same way it started." Alaric said, keeping a strangely calm tone, "I came home on leave to hear sounds of screams and breaking objects. I ran upstairs to find that my family was being murdered. I broke the door down only to have two wrist blades plunged into my chest."

He carefully moved the bandages on his chest and shown her two jagged scars on his chest, they were positioned 3 inches apart from each other, one scar in each pectoral muscle. She hadn't seen these earlier because his torso had been covered in his and those reptiles' blood.

"The shooter didn't have a good aim from the look of it." Alaric explained. "Though I think it was deliberate that it didn't get my heart."  
He moved the bandages back up.

"There were five of them, Predators as we marines call them. Some of them were... raping my wife…I'll never forget her screams." He explained, masking his emotions well. "My infant son was chained against the wall in the way a crucified man would be in some kind of twisted game."

He shook his head in disgust as he bitterly remembered that day.

"He was only three years old and he was being brutally tortured without remorse."

Ja'anya couldn't believe that anyone of her race would do such things to a child. Where was the honor in killing a small child that couldn't fight back?

Alaric mimicked the action of pulling the blades out of his chest.

"I pulled the blades out of my chest and I threw them back blindly, by chance catching their leader in the left eye. Enraged, like he had never been cut open before, he ordered his subordinates to have me thrown against the wall and beaten into submission."

He took a breath.

"They were surprised at how long I lasted and the whole time they were mocking me about how they had hunted down what few family I had looking for me and how the great warrior they had sought after was nothing more then a washed up weakling. With that the leader personally threw me out of the window and everything went black the moment I hit the cold, hard ground."  
He looked at his locket.

"As I lay there broken and dying on the ground, I came round only to see my home in flames. Torched to remove all evidence of the atrocities that happened. I could still hear them, screaming as they were being burned alive. My life turned to dust as I blacked out again."

Alaric rubbed his eyes, trying to remember what came next, or maybe in an attempt to hide tears. Ja'anya found it difficult not shed her own tears. He regained his composure as he finished.

"I woke up three weeks later in hospital only to confirm that my entire family line, even those who had been close to me, had been murdered except for me. That was when I retook the Slayer Oath just as my ancestor did. I broke out from the hospital that night salvaged what I could before heading to that hunting planet and here I am."

He stopped then and apparently, from the look on his face he looked a little relieved, like he finally glad that he was able to confess this to someone after all this time. The pressure of not being able to tell anyone had been a heavy weight on him since he first learned of his heritage. Ja'anya didn't know what to say. This man and his whole family line had known nothing but hardships for hundreds of years and when it seemed it was over it had only begun again.

"That is just terrible." She said.

"No, I wouldn't expect any of your race to understand." Alaric said, placing his axe back with the others. "But there you have it, my life story."

"I know that pain of losing a clanmate." She insisted.

"So you lost a loved one then?"

"Yes, my father died when I was a young pup."

Alaric scoffed in mild praise.

"You're lucky." He said. "I never met my father and my mother died in childbirth. Luckily, she lived long enough to see me born. My first kill so to speak."

"You were orphaned at birth too?" Ja'anya asked in shock.

"More or less. My father was in the Marine Corps just like I was and his squad took it upon themselves to raise me. A proper army kid I was. When I was older, they told me that during one operation, he went MIA during the fighting and was presumed dead. That was the official's story anyway."

"What happened to this squad now?"

Alaric stayed his mouth, clearly not wanting to talk about it. Like it was a sensitive subject.

"I don't want to talk about it." He said, firmly "Just leave it at that."

Alaric got off the bed, straining a bit because of his wounds and picked up his axes. He slung his double one in the harness on his back and clipped the hand ones onto loops on his belt.

"I thank you for your hospitality, but I must go back outside and hunt those bastards." He said with a bit of forced politeness while walking to the door.

"Only if you fancy asphyxiating yourself." Ja'anya cautioned, getting off the bed and following him.

Alaric thought she meant those plants that release choking spore clouds. Little did he know that things had changed since he had in a coma for the past week.

"I have dealt with spores before. If your ship is parked near a hedge of them, I'll just hold my breath."

She shook her head.

"That would be impossible as my ship is in deep space now." She said with a slight grin on her face, her mandibles curling up. "I set course back to my clanship shortly after I found you."

Alaric suddenly got a sickening sinking feeling in his gut. He went up to a closed view port, fumbled around for a cover switch and as the panel slid up, he saw nothing but endless space. The stars like pinholes in the curtain of night. He put his hand on his head in frustration. He showed a great deal of self control containing his anger.

'Calm down Alaric.' He thought rationally. 'This might be the chance you were waiting for.'

He took a couple of deep breaths and he turned back to Ja'anya, his face showing a grudging acceptance.

"Okay, so I guess I'm stuck here." He said, processing this information. "Oh well, I could do with some travel. I had been living in that hell hole of a planet for a year now with no results."

Ja'anya walked up to him, picking up the tray and offering it to him.

"When we get to the clanship in about a week, the Elders will be intrigued to meet you." Ja'anya said. "I know I was."

"I could find out if anyone has any information about those five." Alaric added. "That is if the natives don't try to mount my head on a wall the moment they set eyes on me."  
"They won't if I'm with you." Ja'anya assured, slightly offended by Alaric's comment.

He placed his axes back on the stool before accepting a piece of meat. Then he started scratching his head in irritation, careful not to catch the stitches. He munched on his bit of food.

"Now if you excuse me I gotta go clean my hair. Having blood, dirt, and grease in your hair is extremely irritating." He said walked up to the door. "Not that it matters to your kind I think with those dreadlocks."

"What do you mean grease?" Ja'anya asked, suddenly dreading what he was going to say.

"Well, engine grease is the only thing that'll keep my hair standing up like this. So I apologise for your sheets."

He walked out of the room, scratching his head and muttering under his breath. Ja'anya looked at her bed and saw a large nasty looking stained mark where his head been lying, the mark was all spiked like a multi pointed star. She sighed as she clenched her bandaged hand, wincing as she felt a sharp tingle.  
She looked at her hand.

"Why won't this cut heal?" She whispered to herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can't even begin to explain the notion of seeing the earlier chapters now that i have come so far.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> here is the third chapter of Slayer's Vengeance.
> 
> in this chapter, Alaric is coming to terms with his predicament and the bond between him and Ja'anya is becomes a sprouting seed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some of these sections are supposed to be in italics to convey memories, but for the life of me i cannot get them to go into italics those ones are being marked *
> 
> if anyone knows how to, please let me know.

Chapter Three- Adapting.

*Alaric, bandaged and staggering, sifted through the charred remains of his home. He looked around at the skeletal frames jutting out of the ashes. He pictured his home the day his life was taken, torn up and filled with the screams of his wife and child still echoing in his mind. He felt hard flooring underneath the debris and he cleared the surrounding area, barely wincing at his own injuries. A trapdoor revealed itself and he pulled it open. Ash slipped past in grey and black streams as the hatch was opened fully, revealing steps. Alaric stepped down them. Flicking a torch on, he shone it around the small basement. The only object here was a large, long wooden chest. Hooking the torch on the ceiling, Alaric opened the chest. He looked at the contents before pulling out a cloth bundle. He looked at it for a few moments before placing it aside. He reached back in and pulled out a hand axe. The rune on the axe head glinted in the torch light and reflected in Alaric's eyes.*

Alaric sat in the bathroom on a stool wiping his hair. His thick hair wasn't sticking up now as it was before because he was washing it to get rid of the stale engine grease in it that kept it up. He had the courtesy of washing his hair in a separate bowl as not to contaminate either the bath or the highly ornate sink.

His boots, harness and gloves was neatly placed behind the stool as not to get dirty by the slag water. The water from his hair dripped into the bowl, making ripples of orange in the bowl that was slowly turning into a dirty orange when the substance that dyed his hair was being drawn out by the grease, reverting his hair back into its jet black state that contrasted with his eyes.

Finding out how to turn the taps on and off took a moment for Alaric to understand but he was quick to learn on how yautja technology worked. There weren't any taps per say, rather retracting panels in the upper rims of the basin

I have got to find a better alternative then grease, he thought as he remembered the day he retook the oath.

*He engraved five runes into his arm, using the black ashes of his home as the pigment. He barely winced as he cut into himself with a knife. When all five runes were cut, he took a hand full of ash and rubbed the ashes hard into his arm. He then repeated the process again and again until the marks were as black as night. Picking up his axes and the cloth bundle, he walked back outside. He would have his vengeance.*

He blotted the memory from his mind as he continued cleaning his hair.

He heard the door slide open and in came Ja'anya she walked past him and went over to the sink unit to check on her cut palm. She removed the bandage and examined the wound. It had stopped bleeding days ago but the flesh seemed unable to heal itself together. She never heard of any blade do this before. Monomolecular blades were supposed to be impossible to make by human hands, save for the famous katana swords of Japanese samurai.

Alaric noticed her cut hand and he looked at his axes. He knew exactly what just have happened.

"So you had touched the axe blade did you?" Alaric said, still wiping his hair, clinging messily to his body and head before he stood up and walked over where he took her hand and examined the cut. "Cuts from them never heal on their own, trust me on that."

Ja'anya watched him as he checked on how deep the cut was.

"Hmm, have you got any needles?" he asked.

"Yes" Ja'anya replied not knowing what he needed them for.

He nodded and went over to his harness which was still on the floor. He opened a pouch on the left chest strap and pulled out a small plexi-glass box.  
"Inferno ants" he said, indicating the bright red insects in the box.

Inferno ants are the scourge of floria VII. A whole swarm has to be one of the most lethal predators to ever exist. One account told of how a whole swarm virtually devoured a psuedo-raptor, leaving nothing more then a set of bleached bones in just under an hour.

Ja'anya suddenly looked a bit worried about what he had in mind but she had a surgical needle in her other hand. He came back and took her hand again in one hand and the needle with his other.

"This'll sting a bit, but it works" he said with a slight grimace on his face. "I learned the hard way."

He then gently jab the inside of her cut palm with the needle making her wince, instantly it started bleeding, her florescent blood seeping out of the cut. He held her hand reassuringly before picking one of the ants by it's body, it's pincer like mandibles opening and closing frantically.

He brought it to her cut hand; he pinched the flesh lightly making the wound close before setting the ant on it, it instantly bit into her flesh and she gave a small yelp. A second later Alaric ripped its body of clean from its head, its head still biting.

"Look, continues biting even when it's dead" he remarked. "Earliest suture in existence."

He repeated this until the wound was thoroughly closed and there was a line of heads sticking out of her hand. By now, Ja'anya thought her hand was on fire, but she could feel her cut going numb. Alaric checked her cut to see if it was sealed sufficiently. He had used up all the ants in the box, not that there were many to begin with.

"There you go, give it a few hours and that'll be good as new." He said as he went back to the stool and continued cleaning his hair. "Beats cauterising any day thanks to a certain element in their toxin."

Ja'anya on the other hand felt like her hand was on fire. But secretly, she was impressed by his survival knowledge. There is a rule in the harshest of environments that had been in force since the beginning of time. Adapt or die. That was the only explanation for Alaric surviving on that would with only his axes and no modern technology of any kind.  
He picked up the bowl, placed it to the side of the bath, out of the way and got up. His thick hair was now completely black, resting down past his shoulders and down to his waist. He went out of the bathroom and back to the bedroom to retrieve his axes. He looked at the mark on the bed, the great greasy star that was sprawled where his head was. He picked his axes as he looked at it.

Surprised I didn't lose my head for that, he thought. Maybe she's biding her time.

He came back out and he was met by Ja'anya who had now bandaged her hand again.

"So what are you planning to do since you are up and about?" she asked.

"Same thing I've been doing for all my life. Perfect my skills." he said, juggling one of his hand axes. "You can join me if you wish"

Ja'anya thought for a moment before going into her room to change into training gear. Alaric waited outside patiently for her and she came out a few minutes later dressed in a short skirt and vest along with her glaive, the vest only covered the top of her chest, showing off her abdomen revealing her naturally curved physic.

She guided him to the sparing room. it was spacious and had her collection of trophies from her previous hunts mounted on the far wall, Alaric went over and had a look while he was tying his hair back into a ponytail with a shred of cloth.

"Hmm, you killed some bugs. Pretty damn good" he remarked, 'bugs' being the slang term for the xenomorphs by humans.

"Yes. See those three over there," she pointed at the three that was to the far left. "Those were the first ones I hunted, I got them in one slash from my glaive."

"Impressive, though it doesn't make any difference. You can wipe out whole nests of them and they'll still pop out from nowhere" he said.

His memory flashed as he remembered that incident in which he, alone and with only one of his axes, wiped out a whole hive. He refused to give his superiors any details, stating that he would not talk about it to anyone. Despite gaining a breathing space, the USCMC soon found itself back to square one as the xenomorphs repopulated their numbers when extremists arrived on the scene.

He placed the axes down at the edge of the sparing ring and picked up his double handed axe, he thought for a second as he held it.

"Just how tough are yautja weapons?" he asked.

Ja'anya looked at him in puzzlement.

"Why do you ask?" she questioned.

"Because every time I fought a hunter, his weaponry keeps breaking whenever I hit them."

Ja'anya thought she understood what he meant and pulled out from a weapons cabinet several combi-staffs.

She threw one to Alaric which he caught. After a few seconds of examination to see how it worked, he extended the weapon to its combat configuration. He placed it on the floor before readying his axe.

"Just a precaution, I don't want to hurt you…yet" he said to Ja'anya.

With that, he brought his axe down hard on the weapon. In a hail of sparks it had sliced it cleanly in two, the cut edges were glowing.  
Ja'anya looked at it for a second with wide eyes. This was not something she expected to see in her life.

"I think your axes are gonna be out of the question." Ja'anya said, pointing a surprised finger. "And for obvious reasons."

"I thought yautja weapons were tougher then human ones". Alaric said, picking the two ends and tossing them out of the ring. "This happens every time I block their weapons with the axe blade."

She threw one of the staff weapons to him and caught it; he looked at it admiringly appreciating yautja craftsmanship with its subtle details. He placed his own axe back down and readied himself.

Ja'anya bowed to him; combi-stick ready and Alaric did the same. He had studied some yautja etiquette from some accounts of others who encountered the yautja and what he saw during his jungle stay. With that Ja'anya charged at him and attacked. He blocked her many stick thrusts and spinning kicks and she evaded his staff swings.

Alaric had to admit that he enjoyed this, the chance for some recreational training then the fight-for-your-life regime back on that planet. He also noted Ja'anya's fighting style, using her smaller then average body to evade attacks more effectively. That would make her an excellent skirmisher.

Ja'anya watched Alaric block her blows without breaking his stride. He showed remarkable endurance far beyond any humans she hunted and had a determined mind. Once he had set his mind on trying to beat her in the ring he wasn't going to let anything stop him.

She locked her stick with his staff and they started to struggle against each other. They had been in this match for roughly three hours, stopping for the occasional rest and Alaric wasn't even tired, but Ja'anya was starting to slowdown yet she still fought on determined. They were both sweating as much as a xenomorph salivates, the sweat on their bodies making their skin shine in the light.

"You don't give up do you" Ja'anya said playfully.

"Nope, Slayers never fight deliberately to lose." he said. "That is no way for a warrior to die"

"So Slayers don't kill themselves?" she said. "Even when there is no hope of victory?"

She pulled the staff away from him with her stick and threw that away before lunging at him. He rolled backwards countering her attack, he put his feet up, caught her on them and pushed her into the air where she landed on her outstretched arms and flipped back up. He got up breathing heavily.

"Suicide isn't the way for slayers. To me, its the coward's way out." he said. "You either accept your fate or don't bother fighting in the first place."

That were some of the things his father's squad quoted from his father, Slayer lore as he called it.

"Interesting teachings." Ja'anya said, raising her stick to prepare for another attack.

Alaric seized his moment.

He charged at her and barreled into her body. He got her around her chest, pulling her down to the floor hard where they landed. She immediately pushed against him, using his weight against him, forcing him onto his back with a notable thud on the padded floor and she sat on top of him, her dreadlocks hanging down.

"Bugger, I fell for that, literally." Alaric panted.

"The hunter had become the hunted." Ja'anya said in victory, looking down at the loser.

They stayed there for what was like an eternity, Ja'anya's violet eyes staring into Alaric's red eyes. None of them knew why they had started to do that untill Alaric came to his senses and pushed her off him, catching the huntress off guard.

"No, I must not let myself get into that again" he said as he pushed back his hair and got up.

He walked over and retrieved his axes and walked out the room. Ja'anya sat there thinking, why did she just stare at him like that?

Whats with me? she thought to herself, trying to make sense of herself. Am I starting to get attracted to this ooman? He cute, strong, wise but…so much pain in his heart.  
She looked at her hand and saw the ant heads were starting to come off as they lost their vice-like grip. She unwound the bandage and she gently prised them off. She was surprised and happy that the cut had healed up nicely in such short time. There wasn't even a scar.

He wasn't fooling around, she thought. It is better then cauterising.

She picked herself up and picked up the discarded combi-staffs before she placed them back into the cabinet, excluding the broken one which she disposed of. She then went out of the room pushing back her dreadlocks and, to her surprise, she saw Alaric in the hallway.

He was sitting on the deck, in one hand was the locket of his wife and son and his eyes were covered by the other. His eyes were shut as if he was meditating and he was whispering to himself indistinctly.

She came over and watched him. The words he was saying was nothing like she had heard before, she never heard any other hunters use them whether mimicking human speech or anything. She placed a hand on his bare shoulder, his eyes jolted open and he looked at her.

"I'm sorry about that" he said.

It was like he was gathering his thoughts about what had just happened. She looked at him reassuringly and sat down beside him.

"Are you alright?" Ja'anya asked.

"Yes, I am." he told her. "Its just you remind me of my wife. She was a medic in the forces and we met when she was tending to a shrapnel wound in my leg."  
Ja'anya gave a small giggle.

"I guess history repeated itself when I saw you." she joked.

"I just call it a coincidence" Alaric stated, not chuckling in the slightest.

"What conflict was it when you and her met?" she asked.

Alaric remembered the day perfectly, as it was one of the few days he was happy.

"It was in the Tyran conflict." he told her. "My battalion was sent there to quell down an extremist incursion. The same one where I fulfilled my ancestor's oath. But of course I didn't want to get into a relationship until my oath was fulfilled. She was an incentive as it turned out."

The priest stood there at the alter as Alaric paced over to him, an axe in his hand. The priest ordered many a cultist to stop Alaric and every single one was cut down. Then the priest had ran out of human shields. The priest could only watch horrified as a blood covered Alaric raised the axe and brought it down on him. Alaric felt a wave of satisfaction wash over him as he watched the lifeless body fall down the egg pit's shaft. Then an explosion erupted from below as the priest's suicide charge detonated. The grudge had been settled. Now, for the first time, he could live.

"Were you meditating?" she asked, her eyes shining with inquisitiveness.

Alaric clasped the locket together and let it drop down on to his tags making them jingle.

"In a way. It helps to bring peace to my mind." he said. "Learned from a Buddhist monk on the trip to Floria VII."

"You meditate often?"

Alaric nodded. He took a breath as what he was going to say, Ja'anya might not believe him. Like before he chose his word carefully.

"In my dreams, ever since their deaths, I can see my family." he explained. "A pale, ethereal vision of themselves. They stand there, tortured in the manner they had been during their final moments, calling for help that never comes.". He took a breath. "Also, I can see a masked warrior standing beside me, Grimnir the first slayer. In times of need, I use his counsel to guide me in my mission."

Now he's showing more familiar practices, Ja'anya thought. He should meet one of the elders.

"You worship your ancestors like my people do?". She said. "I didn't think oomans do that anymore."

"In a way, yes. However, only those of his blood can see him and I'm his only living descendant, it's a complicated matter.". He sighed. "Even then it is only images that I can see. Cryptic most of the time, but I can still see the faces of those murderous bastards, standing there and laughing while my family is being tortured."

He looked at one of his axes, watching it shine in the light.

"Maybe, just maybe, when each of them is dead, then the nightmares will end."

Ja'anya still had her hand on his shoulder as she remembered the day of her father's funeral. It was a sad but necessary occasion.

*She stood hand in hand with her mother as they watched several yautja hunters bear the stretcher with her father's armoured body on it. He had died the previous day, shortly after he returned to the ship with the medicines he had gathered. Despite his fellow healers' attempts, he died of his wounds. The only consolation they had was that the sick were recovering thanks to her father's sacrifice. Ja'anya watched as his body was placed in the coffin. His combi-staff was brought forth and placed with him. His mask was then placed on his chest. Then her mother and she walked up to him. Her mother touched her forehead to his in farewell and she then lifted Ja'anya up so that she could do the same. Ja'anya touched her forehead to her father's and them she held a small pendent. It was a wood carving that she had made for when he would get back and it was a carving of his favourite plant. She placed it on his chest before she was lowered back down. The coffin lid closed and the alter sank down into the deck, taking the coffin with it.*

Her thoughts were interrupted by an unwelcome guest.

There was an alarm claxon, a high sharp squeal. Ja'anya got up and rushed to the cockpit with Alaric following her. She got to the bridge and was looking out of the view screen. There was a ship, a ship coming right for them at great speed. A Yautja ship no doubt and it looked like the same ship type as Ja'anya's except this one was more, for lack of a better word, evil.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4- the first dose of vengeance

"Bad bloods." Ja'anya said, gritting her teeth.

Alaric looked on and a grin started to slowly form on his face. Ja'anya noted that Alaric was looking forward to this.

"Looks like it's time for some real action." He said. "The only true training is in combat."

He ran out of the bridge back to the bathroom to get his weaponry. Ja'anya focused on trying to initiate counter measures. She tried maneuvering her ship out of the other ship's trajectory. However, the opposing ship was matching her every move. 'This is going to be close.'She thought as she realized there was no escape. The only thing she could do was brace for impact. But Alaric went running off to get his gear.

"Alaric, brace for impact!" She shouted down the hallway.

Alaric had grabbed his axes from the floor on the way before rushing into the bathroom. He picked up his harness when the ship lurched violently to the side. He fell into the empty bath. hitting his head on the angled side of it. He clutched his forehead in pain, blood seeping from between his fingers.

He was beaten to the ground, clutching his side as one of the Yautja kneed him in the head. Blood went spraying and bones went crack as he fell back. He could hear the attacker laughing callously at his pain. The laughter echoed in his mind as he could feel his life seeping out of his head.

The other ship had launched a cable that hooked into the ship and towed it right towards it before latching to the side hatch. Ja'anya heaved herself from the pilots seat she landed in before heading back to the sparring room. Ja'anya had only time to arm herself with her glaive and she ran to the side hatch where it was already opening.

It opened and, before she had time to react, she was welcomed by a plasma blast that got her in the left shoulder. Before she could recover, a second blast shot the glaive out of her hand and that was quickly followed by a kick to her gut. She fell hard into the deck and she looked at the assailant.

It was a nasty looking Yautja, deep green skin with black spotted markings, wearing armor embellished with numerous skulls of varying size, a smoking plasmacaster on his right shoulder and had a long, curved Japanese style katana in his hand.

She recognized this Yautja from many a wanted poster and it was someone that she'd had no intention of ever stumbling across.

"Sil'cais the scourged." She breathed in horror.

Sil'cais was a notorious rapist and mass murderer that had a massive bounty for his head from the arbitrators and had evaded the enforcers many times. To put it in a simple sense, he was as about as low as a Yautja could possibly degenerate too.

"Ahh, the beauty of Lai'kairis, finally." Sil'cais said gleefully.

He walked over and grabbed her by her dreads before dragging her to her into his ship. She kicked and clawed at him defiantly but it only made him happier, and seemed to encourage him.

"Yes, I like them fiery!" He shouted in glee.

He threw her into his room, it was horrible sight with a huge mass of trophies on the walls of all the people he killed and raped and a separate section of next targets with Ja'anya's own image as the first one marked. She resisted his attempts to get her on his bed but she was wounded from the plasma blasts and was slowly being pushed on the bed by the Bad Blood's heavier weight. Sil'cais ripped off her top with his talons revealing her round breasts. His eyes went wide in admiration and he was about to lean down to lick them when Ja'anya gave him a punch in the face. To the sadistic Bad Blood, it only served as fuel for the fire.

"In case you didn't understand earlier, I like it rough." He said menacingly.

He stuck out his long tongue and gave one long wet lick on her face. Ja'anya couldn't believe the situation she was in. She was going to be violated and then killed, just for this twisted Yautja's self gratification.

"Alaric!" she screamed in desperation.

Before Sil'cais could begin the actual rape, he heard a loud voice behind him.

"Hey fuck-head! Get your filthy claws off her!"

The Bad-Blood raised his head.

"Who dares to call me that…"Sil'cais said turning, but suddenly stopped and a shocked look swept across his face, his mandibles flaring widely as he stared at the apparition before him.

Ja'anya looked past him and saw Alaric wearing only his fatigues, both hand axes in his hands with his blood covered face showing his disgusted expression. Alaric looked at the Yautja with question on his face. His eyes darted over Sil'cais' form, taking in his whole body. It was like Alaric had seen him before. Then his eyes went wide with realization and barely controlled anger when he recalled a previous sight.

The sight of Sil'cais lowering himself onto his wife.

"You!" He ground out in complete hostility, bringing his axes to bear and a snarl forming on his face.

"You!" Sil'cais said in shock, grabbing his sword and standing up, his towering form dwarfing Alaric. "You're supposed to be dead!"

"Obviously you Yautja are not effective killers, especially scum like you." Alaric spat back.

He turned to Ja'anya. He noticed how she was now topless and that she had a plasma burn on her shoulder. He knew exactly what had been about to happen and it sickened him to the core.

"Are you okay, Ja'anya?" He asked.

Ja'anya only nodded as she saw that Sil'cais was aiming his plasma-caster at Alaric. Alaric, anticipating an attack, raised his axes. The characteristic three red dots appeared on him as they aimed towards his head. He could only frown at the Bad Blood.

"Oh, come on." Alaric scoffed, raising his axes. "Are you that much of a coward that you're afraid to fight me face to face?"

Sil'cais grinned sadistically.

"No, I'd rather shoot you in the face." He smirked.

The shoulder cannon fired in a blue flash, sending a bolt of energy plasma streaming towards Alaric. Alaric blocked his face with his axes. A blue fiery flash erupted from the impact and Sil'cais snickered.

When the smoke cleared, Sil'cais' grin left his face momentarily. It turned out that his plasma caster wasn't very effective. In fact, it had done absolutely nothing as Alaric lowered his axes. He was not injured in the slightest and his axes were not scratched, melted, or even singed from the plasma. Ja'anya was so completely surprised at that event that she wasn't aware that her jaw dropped.

"I don't know how you did that." Sil'cais spat, aiming again. "But try and stop this!"

His plasma caster charged up, blue energy glowed within. Ja'anya was now concerned. Alaric's axes may have stopped a standard shot but they might not withstand a fully charged blast. Alaric didn't look that concerned as he readied himself.

"Coward." Alaric jeered.

"Say hello to the Black Warrior, Ooman!" Sil'cais roared as he fired the shot.

It looked like a miniature sun as the ball of energy shot streaming towards Alaric and he wasn't even flinching.

'If it hits him or the hull,' Ja'anya thought with fear. 'We're both dead.'

Alaric then did something very unexpected. He actually swung his axe, hit the plasma bolt with the side of the blade and sent it rocketing back to its shooter. The plasma-caster detonated in a blue flash with the BadBlood exclaiming in both pain and surprise. Ja'anya shuffled further up the bed and saw the result of that aimed ricochet. Sil'cais' weapon was completely blown away, leaving a sparking stump sticking out of his pauldron and the right side of his face suffering first degree burns. He was cursing in Yautja as he ripped off his destroyed weapon. Alaric juggled his batting axe.

"Now," Alaric said, in a serious tone. "I suggest you stop embarrassing yourself and fight like a warrior."

Sil'cais unsheathed his katana style blade with an enraged look on his face.

"You're dead!" He cursed, raising his sword. "Just like your bastard family before you!"

The Bad Blood stampeded forward, yelling a warcry and brought his sword down at Alaric's head. Alaric blocked it with both axes with a loud clang. A brief struggle occurred, and Alaric was showing a great deal of strength, causing Sil'cais to strain in effort. The struggle ended when Alaric pushed both axes and sliced through the blade cleanly, the cut ends were glowing hot.

"What! Impossible!" Sil'cais shouted in disbelief, looking at the glowing stump of the blade on his sword.

He threw the now useless sword away and extended his wrist blades to a length two feet long. He slashed at Alaric wildly, making large gashes in the walls as Alaric nimbly dodged and parried them.

"Stay still!" Sil'cais roared as he tried to gut Alaric with his blades.

"Pathetic! Alaric jeered, hardly breaking a sweat. "You could've easily sliced me into Swiss cheese if you'd been busy fighting real warriors instead of civilians."

The fight raged all around the ship, many things were being slashed and hacked into tiny shreds. Ja'anya was still lying on the bed as she watched them slug it out in the hallway. She had an inkling of suspicion as she determined that Sil'cais was the one who had raped Alaric's wife, given the Bad Blood's background. She watched as Alaric dodged everything that Sil'cais was unleashing. He wasn't even at full health and he was holding his ground.

'If he's like this when he's still recovering', she thought as Alaric kicked Sil'cais in the knee. 'I'd hate to fight him when he's at full health.'

Sil'cais still had no luck in even laying a scratch on Alaric. The human was just too agile. His mind went into a bend. 'How did this ooman get so strong and fast when he was barely able to fight one year ago?'

"You wanted to fight the Slayer a year ago, and now you face him, so fight me!" Alaric yelled, swiping with his axes, catching the wrist blades and slicing them clean off.

Sil'cais looked at his blades in shock. Looking back, he saw Alaric casually twirling his axes.

"Not so easy when he actually fights back, is it?" Alaric asked smugly.

Sil'cais backed off, trying to access the situation.

Alaric came walking up to him when he threw the axes to the wall behind him and stood there arms outstretched, apparently goading the Bad Blood into charging at him. It looked like he was trying to test Sil'cais' honor, if the Bad Blood had any.

"Come on then!" Alaric roared. "Finish the job, if you got a pair!"

Sil'cais took his chance. He charged at the slayer, arms out ready to strike him. He got within a foot in distance when Alaric punched both sides of Sil'cais' head with his fists. The Bad Blood reeled back holding his throbbing head before Alaric leaped up, grabbing the fazed Yautja by the head and delivering a mighty head butt.

Sounds of cracking bones filled the air followed by roars of pain. Ja'anya was off the bed in a flash and went out to see what happened and she saw Sil'cais on the floor holding his face in pain, blood spewing out between the fingers between pain filled grunts. Alaric was sitting on the floor cradling his head as if he had a migraine, bleeding from the head more heavily.

"You big baby." He snarled.

Ja'anya came up past Sil'cais with which she gave a strong sharp kick in his side, making him yelp. She helped Alaric up and noticed the gash on his head and covered in blood she saw the glint of metal on his skull. A titanium plate.

"Ouch" She said, looking back at the Bad Blood on the floor, the mere thought of having a plate of hardened metal slammed in the face made her shudder.

"That's gonna hurt in the morning." He said, staggering up to the target of his vengeance. "Not that this bastard is gonna have mornings anymore."

Alaric knelt down over Sil'cais.

"In an ironic way, I should really thank you for this." He said with a grin on his face.

Sil'cais looked at his with a puzzled look from behind his hands.

"If you hadn't broken my skull from kneeing me in the head, I wouldn't have this plate now would I?" Alaric said, tapping his head.

He got up and turned around to retrieve his axes and he picked them up. He intended to finish the job here and now when he heard a cry of warning from behind him.

"Alaric, watch out!" Ja'anya cried.

He turned and saw Sil'cais rushing at him, a serrated dagger clenched in his fist. Alaric was too late to dodge it and the foot and a half long blade penetrated deep into his chest with a sickening crack as it slid through his ribs, penetrating a lung and bursting out of his back, spraying crimson blood on the floor behind him. He was hauled up into the air and was held three feet off the deck, coughing up blood.

"DIE, DIE, DIE!" Sil'cais roared; his face was widening into his sadistic smile albeit with broken mandibles.

Alaric looked into his face, eye to eye and smirked.

"Attacking when I'm not looking, that's really very brave." He jeered. "Coward."

Alaric spat a gob of blood and spit into Sil'cais' eye. Sil'cais wiped his eye with one finger and smirked. The Bad Blood had Alaric right where he wanted him. He was going to finish what he had started one year ago but he decided add more salt to the wound.

"I will violate your friend after I kill you and she'll love every second of it." He said venomously. "Just like your mate did."

Alaric suddenly heard his wife's screams in his head.

Sil'cais drove and twisted the dagger in further, making Alaric strain as more blood seeped out of his body, dripping to the deck till he stopped moving. Alaric's head was swaying gently; his axes fell out of his hands and clanged onto the floor. Ja'anya gasped in horror as she saw Alaric thrown hard into the deck. Sil'cais roared in triumph and then turned his eyes on Ja'anya.

"Now to claim my prize." He said, grinning with his broken mandibles dangling limply. "Let's see how you like a kick in the side?"

Ja'anya positioned herself to fight back. She was ready to fight and die rather then let Sil'cais have his perverted way with her. She picked up a shard of the Bad Blood's shattered wrist blades and took up a defensive posture.

Sil'cais tutted mockingly.

"Now, now." He said, wagging a finger.

"Come any closer and I'll tear it off!" Ja'anya warned him.

"I can think of other things to tear off." Sil'cais mused, indicating Ja'anya intact skirt.

He took a step forward towards her, cracking his knuckles, when he heard several muted grunts. They came where Alaric's slumped body was and they was getting louder and louder. He turned around and to his stunned surprise; Alaric was picking himself up, and climbing to his feet.

'You have got to be fucking kidding?' The Bad Blood thought in utter disbelief.

There was something different about him, they way he was standing and grunting with his head down. His muscles were going into violent spasms, the veins were swelling up, and his muscles were growing slightly. His hair started to stand up on edge and his hands were twitching slightly as he reached and pulled out the blade lodged in his chest in one, swift motion, drawing an arc of blood in the air. He raised his head and there was a somewhat disturbing change. His eyes had changed from deep, limitless red to a penetrating bright crimson and Ja'anya swore that she could see they were glowing.

"I got one piece of advice for you and all the other dishonorable genetic mistakes of your race: NEVER underestimate a Slayer." He said, and his voice had changed into a more deep flanging voice, almost like the vocals of a Yautja.

With that, he snapped the blade like it was made of balsa wood before throwing the two halves to the deck. Sil'cais was now so frustrated at Alaric's defiance that he made a mistake that would cost him dearly.

"Don't you ever fucking die!" Sil'cais roared. "Like your fucking family!"

He charged at Alaric swiping out with a left-hook. Alaric caught the blow in his left hand and they both struggled. Alaric was showing no signs of struggle, in fact he was smiling with a toothy grin. Sil'cais on the other hand couldn't push forward with his attack and he was disturbed by the way Alaric only smiled. Ja'anya was surprised at this sudden show of strength.

Alaric turned his eyes to Ja'anya, like he was signaling her to run.

'Ja'anya', Alaric struggled to think. 'Run!'

His eyes flickered and what happened next would be a shock to the Ja'anya's system as Alaric turned back to Sil'cais.

"Especially... a Slayer... with the RAGE!" Alaric roared with inhuman volume.

His eyes flashed red, as if all the blood vessels in his eyes ruptured simultaneously, into crimson orbs and his long hair stood up on edge in sharp spikes. Just like they had on Floria VII. Ja'anya's eyes went wide and her mandibles spread out in surprise as she saw Alaric enter this heightened state. The flames in Sil'cais' eyes suddenly withered and died as he only now realized why Alaric kept on surviving, despite his injuries. It was possibly the one thing a Yautja was ever afraid of, and Sil'cais had been antagonizing him from the start.

'Berserker!' Was the only thing Sil'cais could barely whimper out.

Alaric clenched his hand, there was the sound of shattering bone and Sil'cais yelled in pain. Alaric was now delivering a series of high powered punches and kicks in various areas of the body, creating sounds of cracking bones and spraying blood followed by Alaric's roars as he gained momentum. Ja'anya looked on in awe as the tables had turned on the Bad Blood who could barely keep up with the steady barrage of powerful deadly blows.

'I don't believe it!' She thought in disbelief. 'I'm the first to see a Yautja getting the shit beaten out of him by an ooman!'

That wasn't entirely true as there had been other humans who stood their ground against Yautja and won, but never in a manner like this. Most humans would have to resort to cunning and wits in order to beat a hunter, whereas Alaric was using pent up rage and one hell of an attitude. Her thoughts were brought back to the present when Alaric rammed Sil'cais into an adjacent wall with a roar.

Sil'cais managed to block one of Alaric's blows and punched him in the side of the face. This had stopped Alaric for the moment. He just stood there, like he was slowly registering that he had been attacked. Then he growled with inhuman anger, vaguely in the manner of a Yautja. Then, faster then Sil'cais could move, Alaric delivered a punch that dug right into Sil'cais' gut, knocking the wind and maybe even the lungs out of his chest. Alaric had punched so hard that glowing green blood went dribbling down his arm.

Note of humor: does the phrase 'Falcon Punch!' seem relevant?

Alaric let Sil'cais drop to the floor and watched as bad blood tried to crawl away with a snarl on his face. A click was heard as Sil'cais flipped open his wristpad and he was frantically trying to put in the self destruct code. Ja'anya saw what he was doing and her eyes went wide. There wouldn't be any chance of evading the blast radius if he succeeded. Alaric responded by walking up and stomping on Sil'cais' wrist, breaking bones and the equipment with just his bare foot. The piece of equipment blew up in a shower of sparks and Sil'cais could only gape as his arm bent unnaturally. Ja'anya remembered what Alaric said about suicide and she thought it to be quite fitting at this moment.

'Suicide is the coward's way out.'

Alaric grabbed him by the dreadlocks and pulled his head up, ready to deliver the final blow. Sil'cais at this point would have been better off if he didn't say the one thing that really infuriated Alaric.

"No!" Sil'cais screamed in terror, trying to get loose. "Mercy!"

Ja'anya, watching from the side, saw that the word had struck a nerve in Alaric and, to Sil'cais' already long overdue suffering and it only enraged him more. He grabbed the Bad Blood by the neck and hoisted him off the floor until he was barely standing on his toes. He clenched tight, making Sil'cais choke and gasp.

"Mercy?" Alaric roared at the Bad Blood. "You dare to beg for mercy when you showed my family none!"

He brought Sil'cais' face up close to his.

"The only mercy you'll get is the mercy of death!"

He choke slammed the Bad Blood into the deck, then grabbed Sil'cais by the leg and, with remarkable strength, swung him into an adjacent wall with enough force to leave a dent and a green splatter mark. Alaric then grabbed his head and mercilessly pounded it into the deck again and again. With Sil'cais barely conscious, Alaric gave him an eye opener from hell. Alaric picked the Bad Blood onto his shoulder, raised him overhead at arms length, and brought him down onto his knee with a sickening crack. Sil'cais gave off a deafening roar of pain before Alaric slammed him into the deck.

Ja'anya flinched when she heard Sil'cais' spine snap painfully in half.

In a short span of a minute, Sil'cais' shattered body was now nothing more than a twitching and overused, Yautja shaped punching bag! But by some unfathomable means, Sil'cais was still alive, albeit in extremely excruciating pain. Alaric looked at him in the eyes one last time. He held the now near death Bad Blood by his dreadlocks and he had an axe in one hand before roaring one last thing.

He roared something indistinct at the Bad Blood, surprisingly, in a language that Ja'anya had never heard. It sounded like what she thought was archaic Yautja mixed with one of the many human dialects, but in truth, she couldn't tell in Alaric's enraged state.

With that, he swung his axe and decapitated the Bad Blood in a spray of green blood that left a huge trailing arc splattered on the walls. The headless corpse fell to the deck in a bloody, pulverized heap.

Alaric stood there panting, green and red blood covering him, severed head in one hand and his blood soaked axe dripping in the other. He threw his head back and roared long and loud in victory in the same way a Yautja hunter would've celebrated the kill.

Ja'anya couldn't comprehend what she had just witnessed, nor did she care to think about it. She had only one thing on her mind. Ja'anya rushed to him and held onto him in a tight hug, eyes shut in relief that he wasn't dead. Alaric stopped roaring and looked at her with puzzlement evident in his crimson eyes. He could see tears, actual tears, rolling down her face. Tears of joy. He never thought he would ever see a Yautja shed tears of any kind. The odd sight, as mysteriously as Alaric went berserk, had a calming effect on him and he could feel himself feeling more serene and peaceful. His rage was subsiding. His eyes slowly dispersed back into their normal state, his body slowed down and he smiled before dropping the severed head, and the axe in his hands, before he lightly hugged her back.

Then he collapsed backwards to the deck unconscious with her in his arms.

Ja'anya barely had time to brace herself as she landed on top of him. She looked at him, and saw a smile on his sleeping, blood covered face. It was like he had finally achieved some type of peace, for the moment at least.

'Slayer…'She thought as she toyed with the name in her head. 'What an incredible warrior.'

She was on top of a human who had gone from a disciplined marine into a frenzied berserker before falling unconscious again, like when they first met. Despite this, and the fact that she was half naked, Ja'anya was disinclined to move, because she was content just to stay in his embrace for a short time, curling up and purring happily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did anyone enjoy the carnage?
> 
> this is but the first of many rocking actions scenes that are to come.


End file.
